Planning or just returned from a trip to the Silos in Waco? Create your own little piece of the Magnolia Market: Here’s how to Plant a Joanna Gaines-Inspired Herb Garden.

Thank you to Harvestsponsoring this post and the opportunity to enjoy and take care of the best parts of our lives.

Sometimes you need to get away.

Not to an exotic destination but somewhere there aren’t dishes to do, phone calls to return, kids can swing and play, and the best thing about your day is biting into a creamy, buttery, oh-my-goodness cupcake.

Some days you just need that.

That’s exactly why we headed to the Silos.

Unless you’ve had your head buried deep under a rock, Magnolia Market at the Silos is the beautiful space curated by Chip and Joanna Gaines of the HG Network’ Fixer Upper fame. Deep in the heart of Waco, just a hop, skip and a West kolache stop from Fort Worth, you can spend the day frolicking along the gardens, green space and shiplap-covered designs from the dynamic duo that have captivated our hearts and homes.

You’ll find no special amusement park rights, lights, sparkle or even entertainment here (unless you participate in the annual Silobration.) What you will find is an golden ambiance that embraces the simplicity that it seems so many of us are yearning for with a shop full of housewares, a cupcakery/sweetshop that lines to enter rival the infamous Bouchon in Napa Valley, a small cottage full of fairy garden staples and a few food trucks to keep you fueled.

And for some reason it’s magical. While I wouldn’t call myself a farmhouse kinda gal, the place (which isn’t an amusement park, but just a free greenspace to enter), makes me happy…makes the kids happy…and from the looks of the many thousands that flock there from all over the country, makes us all happy, content, and without much effort at all. All you have to do is get there and take a deep breathe. It’ll consume you. I liken it to free therapy without any medication (unless you indulge in a cupcake or a gluten-free cookie.)

I just wish I could bottle it up and take the feeling home with us. And apparently so did the kids as they immediately begin asking if we could create a garden “like Joanna and Chip.” A reasonable request of course, but considering my thumb resembles a dark shade of black than green, I first begin to say no. But in my calm demeanor and need to keep our euphoria peaked, we headed to Lowes before returning home to make our garden.

Looking through all our photos from the Silos (have your battery charged as you’ll take so many and they’ll all be picture perfect), the kids were really excited by the idea of planting our own herb garden. So without a big plan or design, we began to create our garden. But we didn’t just build any garden. We built one with Joanna in mind. One we thought she’d be proud of. And one that gave us our own little piece of Magnolia in our own backyard.

How to Plant a Joanna Gaines-Inspired Herb Garden

1) Decide on What herbs to Use.

We knew we wanted to put a mix of both beautiful fragrant herbs as well as beautiful looking herbs that we could enjoy both while they were growing and hopefully later in our own cooking. Remembering the lavender cupcake that we saw at the Silos (but unfortunately had been sold out just before we got to the front of the line) lavender was our first pick. After that began to fancy a little bit of everything, but honing in on our Joanna-minded skills, less is more. So we opted for Sage, Thyme and with the help of our handy Lowe’s man, we added a little Oregano (who doesn’t love Oregano – especially because it’s so easy to grow and we put it in everything.)

TIP: Whatever you find at your local garden center like Lowe’s is going to be what grows well in your region. You’ll just need to make sure where you put it at home gets enough shade, sun and water.)

2) Choose Your Container.

Herbs are some of the easiest plants because they don’t have deep roots so they can thrive in many kinds of containers. Pots, window boxes, wine barrels, actually really anything can work as long as you have enough room for the herbs and the soil. Plus you’ll want to make sure where you plan to put your container gets enough light for the types of herbs you’ll want to be growing.

We found a recycled wine barrel we knew would look good outside in yard and would be able to be easily moved if it needed more sun or shade.

3) Select Your Soil.

This was the part I wasn’t quite sure about…the soil. It would seem that dirt is dirt, right? WRONG.

The soil, whether it’s potting soil, gardening soil or raised bed all differs in what’s in the dirt. And even more so, where the dirt comes from is so important – not just for your plants, but in the case of an edible herb garden, you’re also eating the plants, so it’s important to make sure you trust your dirt too.

Planting with Harvest’s organic soils, you plant with “clean” dirt ensuring your garden grows without added chemicals, pesticides, preservatives. In doing so, you do your small part in helping reduce landfill waste by keeping nearly 2,000,000 tons of waste from ending up in landfills, which also seems like something Joanna would be happy we took into consideration.

4) Build Your Garden.

As soon as we got home, we immediately went to creating our herb garden. As we dug in the ground, we continued to think through our Magnolia-inspired touches, thumbing through our photos that reminded us of our adventure to the Silos.

Adding Harvest’s Organic Potting Mix, we filled the barrel to a few inches to the top and carefully placed our herbs lovingly into the barrel. The kids chose how to place the herbs and then we added some water to set the dirt and to give the herbs a healthy drink of water. (Most the time your herbs will come with an insert educating you on the amount of moisture and sun they should receive.)

After we were done, we basked in our work. Rather proud of ourselves, we instantly begin thinking of how to create a little bit of “Joanna” in our garden.

5) Show Your Love.

For us, this is where all the creativity went to work. We knew we wanted to add some placards to identify our herbs.

Using some popsicle sticks and chalkboard paint, we created some easy markers to slide into the soil. Feeling a little inspired by the fairy gardens, we took a mason jar and a small set of solar lights we found at home to create a firefly look to add to the garden. Simple and sweet, it was just what we were looking to remind us of Magnolia in our own little way.

But there was one little thing that was missing.

A little white chalk and a resourced chalkboard later, we knew exactly what it needed to make our little piece of magnolia complete.

While a trip to Magnolia isn’t always in the plan, there’s a little piece of it here for us to stop and remind us to love, live and grow.

Meet this Mama: Autumn Rose Reo

Get REAL Solutions for REAL Parents that Work! From recipes, things to do, parenting tips (and fails) and how to cope with everything in between, she'll share all the best ways to take on your (mama) challenges... https://www.mamachallenge.com/about/

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